The Town of Bridgewater, Massachusetts is located in Plymouth County. Bridgewater, MA is home to 25,000 residents and is located 28 miles south of Boston. Neighborhoods in Bridgewater include Scotland, Stanley, Pratt Town and South Bridgewater. The town was named after Bridgewater, Somerset, England.

Bridgewater runs along the Taunton River and also has several other rivers, brooks and ponds which branch off of the main waterway along the western edge of the town. Bridgewater is also home to two forests and several conservation areas, including the Hockomock Swamp Wildlife Management Area. Parts of the Hockomock Swamp are known as the Bridgewater Triangle. Legend has it that many unusual encounters occurred in the swamp, including UFO and Bigfoot sightings, black panthers and other anomalous phenomena. The Bridgewater Triangle was mentioned in Loren Coleman’s book, Mysterious America.

Bridgewater is home to Bridgewater State University, a public liberal arts college. The University was founded in 1840 as a teacher’s school. Bridgewater State is the largest of Massachusetts’ nine state universities outside of the University of Massachusetts system, with an average annual enrollment of about 7,000 undergraduate and 2,000 graduate students.

Bridgewater is also home to the notorious Bridgewater State Hospital, the subject of the award-winning 1967 documentary, Titicut Follies. The Hospital is a state facility which houses the criminally insane, as well as those whose sanity is being evaluated for the purpose of the criminal justice system. Bridgewater State Hospital went through several rebuilding processes after its establishment in 1855, when it was used as a workhouse for inmates with more lenient sentences. The Hospital, which currently houses approximately 400 adult males, falls under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections.